Science Without Laws: Model Systems, Cases, Exemplary Narratives

297 Pages·2007·11.36 MB·English

by  Angela N. H. Creager (editor), Elizabeth Lunbeck (editor), M. Norton Wise (editor)

Science without LawS
Science and cuLturaL theory
A Series Edited by Barbara Herrnstein Smith
and E. Roy Weintraub
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Science without LawS
ModeL SySteMS, caSeS, exeMpLary narrativeS
Edited by Angela N. H. Creager, Elizabeth Lunbeck, and M. Norton Wise
Duke University Press Durham and London 2007
© 2007 Duke University Press
All rights reserved
Printed in the United States of
America on acid-free paper ♾
Designed by Amy Ruth Buchanan
Typeset in Minion by Tseng
Information Systems, Inc.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-
Publication Data appear on the last
printed page of this book.
To the memory of
Clifford Geertz (1926–2006)
colleague and friend

contentS
1 Introduction
AngelA n. H. CreAger, elizAbetH
lunbeCk, And M. norton Wise
part 1: BioLogy
23 Redesigning the Fruit Fly:
The Molecularization of Drosophila
MArCel Weber
46 Wormy Logic:
Model Organisms as Case-Based Reasoning
rACHel A. Ankeny
59 Model Organisms as Powerful Tools
for Biomedical Research
e. JAne Albert HubbArd
73 The Troop Trope:
Baboon Behavior as a Model System in
the Postwar Period
susAn sperling
part 2: SiMuLationS
93 From Scaling to Simulation:
Changing Meanings and Ambitions
of Models in Geology
nAoMi oreskes
125 Models and Simulations in Climate Change:
Historical, Epistemological, Anthropological,
and Political Aspects
AMy dAHAn dAlMediCo
157 The Curious Case of the Prisoner’s Dilemma:
Model Situation? Exemplary Narrative?
MAry s. MorgAn
part 3: huMan ScienceS
189 The Psychoanalytic Case:
Voyeurism, Ethics, and Epistemology
in Robert Stoller’s Sexual Excitement
JoHn Forrester
212 “To Exist Is to Have Confidence in One’s Way
of Being”: Rituals as Model Systems
CliFFord geertz
225 Democratic Athens as an Experimental System:
History and the Project of Political Theory
JosiAH ober
243 Latitude, Slaves, and the Bible:
An Experiment in Microhistory
CArlo ginzburg
264 Afterword:
Reflections on Exemplary Narratives,
Cases, and Model Organisms
MAry s. MorgAn
275 Contributors
279 Index
Introduction
angeLa n. h. creager, eLizaBeth LunBeck,
and M. norton wiSe

At the dawn of the twenty-first century, the face of biology may well
be that of a laboratory mouse. Science writers, government agencies,
and researchers alike tout the crucial role played by biology’s experimental sub-
jects, “model systems” as they are termed, in advancing knowledge. These crea-
tures are not showcased for their appeal—the flies, mice, worms, and microbes
that are the mainstay of laboratory science would be regarded as vermin or
germs outside their scientific homes—but because they have become the locus
of producing knowledge about life and disease. To make the case that improv-
ing human health rests on our intimate understanding of a select set of rodents,
fish, amphibians, microbes, and even a plant, the National Institutes of Health
(NIH) features a Web site titled “Model Organisms for Biomedical Research”
(www.nih.gov/science/models). These are the organisms whose genomes were
sequenced as part of the Human Genome Project. And as the NIH wants to
make clear, they are the creatures that stand in for us humans as laboratory bi-
ologists investigate how living processes work—and how they go awry. A spe-
cial supplement to The Scientist titled “Model Organisms” offers feature articles
on eight such exemplary forms of life, from the intestinal bacterium Escherichia
coli to the nematode worm Caenorahdbitis elegans (see figure 1). As the editors
explain the importance of this “motley collection of creatures”:
Researchers selected this weird and wonderful assortment from tens of
millions of possibilities because they have common attributes as well as
unique characteristics. They’re practical: A model must be cheap and plen-
tiful; be inexpensive to house; be straightforward to propagate; have short
gestation periods that produce large numbers of offspring; be easy to ma-
nipulate in the lab; and boast a fairly small and (relatively) uncomplicated
genome. This type of tractability is a feature of all well-used models.1
At one level, the reliance of biomedical researchers on standardized crea-
tures for experimentation is mere practical necessity. Biological materials are,
by their nature, variable and complex; life scientists have sought to control the
variability they face by selecting out and standardizing particular experimen-
tal subjects. Yet these organisms, no matter how standardized they become as